The Baseball Eulogy

Over the past few months, I've often been asked to speak on my mom's behalf among people who don't know her very well. Most recently, I was asked to describe her, to list the kinds of things she liked, so that we could surround her with them. I'll be honest, it was more difficult than it should've been. Can I tell you what she doesn't like? is what I felt like asking, because somehow that felt more informative.

She was from a big family, the youngest of 4 girls, and then she had a big family, 4 girls and 1 boy--so maybe it was more efficient to lead with what you don’t like, what you won’t do, rather than get lost in the minutiae of personal preferences. I can relate to that approach. For my mom, it was perhaps too much to hope that people would cater to her likes, so she made sure the world knew what she couldn’t stand instead. Even so, there was nuance involved. Her vocal distaste for highly specific things was, in many cases, a reflection of the profound love she felt for the people, places, and things she was most passionate about. She led with her dislikes and presented them as a low bar, a line in the sand she hoped not to cross. But she always would when the time came. There’s no line she wouldn’t cross for something she loved.

For instance, my mom did not like vegetables, but she was a nutritionist. She raised her kids to understand the components of a healthy diet, designed menus and prepared fresh food for the Head Start program, and educated countless families about healthy eating through the Durham County Health Department.

She did not like old movies, classical music, seafood, foreign places, or walking in the woods, but she was married to my dad for 49 and a half years. She famously said that her idea of camping was an air-conditioned Winnebago with a color TV and a wet bar. Meanwhile, my dad could sleep on the cold, hard ground and eat MRE’s out of a plastic pouch. She grew up a city girl, but she followed my dad into the wilderness, to explore remote Puerto Rican islands, to shovel the Canandaigua snow while pregnant, and to raise kids amid the mysterious quirks of my dad’s childhood home, where there were no neighbors and every season, a new plague of insect would crawl out of the walls. For all their differences and throughout all of life’s obstacles, my mom and dad remained committed to each other until the end, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. 

My mom did not like musicals, but made an exception for “My Fair Lady” because she loved Audrey Hepburn. She also sat through our annual family musical, where the kids would all lip-synch and choreograph dances to Christmas songs in the living room. She’d nod along to a version of Rudolph The Rednosed Reindeer that she openly hated, sipping rum and Tab or the more festive option of Southern Comfort and egg nog.

She didn’t like gaining weight, but she loved dessert. She made at least 8 different varieties of Christmas cookies and baked at least one, if not multiple cakes for every birthday or holiday (and then took pictures of them, because that’s apparently a Reilly tradition). She didn’t like gaining weight—but she carried 5 children. She ate cottage cheese for lunch every day to pack herself with low-calorie protein because she was pregnant every 2 years for a full decade. She probably didn’t even like cottage cheese—because WHO DOES? But she ate it anyway because it was good for us.

She didn’t like noise or mess or whining, but her life was full of kids, young professionals, elderly people and pets—who can all be notoriously difficult. She had 5 kids of her own and quit her job to care for us. But she also ran a daycare out of our house, which meant that up to 6 additional children were under her care on any given weekday for about 11 years. And she didn’t stop there, when she returned to her chosen profession. According to her good friend Cara from the Health Department, she mothered countless other nutritionists as their “work mom” over the years; she looked out for them and cared for them, as both a mom and a friend. Cara also described how my mom felt about her biological, non-work children, whom she shared a lot about at work. "She love you guys in a way that made me want to be a better mother," Cara said. "Fiercely. Beautifully. Unconditionally." She cared for my dad’s mom, Grandma Mamie, whom we lived with throughout my childhood; and for her oldest sister Annie, whom we eulogized in this church less than 2 years ago. And she cared for our animals—the long list of cats, cocker spaniels, and labradors that became hers when we lost interest, or the short list of Liz’s dogs who periodically came to visit—but the most important of which was Mojo; the lab/collie rescue puppy who was her last and by far her favorite fur baby. May he Rest In Peace with her. 

My mom didn’t like classic literature, but she could read a beach book faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. She could finish two Danielle Steeles and Jude Deveraux in a single day if you left her alone long enough. And she celebrated every word I ever wrote, even the most painfully-bad poems and never-ending stories. She was my biggest fan and always gave me more credit than I deserved.

She didn’t like high-brow cinema, but she’d watch any movie with Robert Redford, Richard Gere, or Patrick Swayze.

She did not like sand, wet towels, or swimming in the ocean, but she loved the beach. She never got her hair wet, was the master of the “mom swim” and did her best to stay anchored to her spot under the umbrella with a sack full of romance novels. She did not like hiking in the woods, but she loved taking long walks on the beach after dinner while the sun was setting. She’d take off in tennis shoes and leave us all in the dust. But by the end of the night, she’d find a slower pace with my dad, holding hands and watching us cartwheel around, undoubtedly trying to ignore how sandy we were getting after JUST taking our second showers of the day.

She did not like calling attention to herself, but she was wickedly funny and could curse up a storm. She did not suffer fools and could dress someone down in a single sentence if she wanted, especially if you had wronged her children in some way. 

She did not like leaving her zip code. In fact, we grew up thinking Durham was a far-away place that should only be accessed under extreme circumstances. Anywhere outside of the Chapel Hill city limits was either “The Boonies” or “Outer Mongolia” and absolutely not worth the trouble. She did not like driving to Durham—but she spent the latter part of her career working there, first at Head Start and then at the Health Department, and she loved her work. She hated the tedious aspects of her job as everyone does. But she loved the people. She cared about what she did. She took pride in her profession. And she worked so hard. For years, in fact, she’d leave her job in Durham and work part-time in the evenings at places like Sanctuary or the PTA Thrift Store in Carrboro. As her children, we were profoundly impacted by her work ethic and seek to live out that legacy in our own lives.

She did not like what she referred to as “organized happiness”, social mixers with small talk, a lot of superficial posturing, and weird food she didn’t eat. But she loved creating “organized happiness” for her family. She hosted extravagant holiday dinners with so many guests that we had a seating chart and hand-written place cards on every plate. She threw us birthday parties and slumber parties, and made Sunday dinner in the dining room on real china every week for roughly 30 years, with heavy hors d-oeuvres, wine, meat, a vegetable, a starch, and most importantly, dessert—regardless of who was coming.

She did not like sports, but she took pride in our accomplishments in soccer, cheerleading, gymnastics, basketball, and softball. She supported us in spirit, of course—because sports either happened outdoors or in “Outer Mongolia”, so physically attending the events was fairly fraught with too many unlikable things. But she loved that we loved our sports and she was always proud of what we could do.

Ultimately, she endured a lot of things she didn’t particularly like for the ones she loved and often sacrificed her own health and happiness, making exceptions so that she could facilitate the fulfillment of our wants, our needs, and our dreams. Self-sacrifice was her love language, along with cooking and baking, of course. 

As I said, she did not like sports, but she did love “baseball”—although not the kind you’re imagining. “Baseball” was our euphemism for whenever our mom would get emotional. We’d be sitting at dinner, chatting about something, when she would break down suddenly in the middle of a sentence. It was always short-lived. Her recovery was almost instantaneous and no actual tears were ever produced; it was a just fleeting quiver in her voice that would trail off and disappear almost immediately. Naturally, we didn’t want her to be sad, so we’d quickly deflect, reminding her that “there’s no crying in baseball”. It was a famous Tom Hanks line from A League of Their Own, when the coach makes one of the female baseball players cry. It made her laugh and helped her move on, even if she wasn’t ready to. We should have allowed her to cry. It’s therapeutic. But it was hard for us to let her feel her feelings.

At this point, it’s difficult to imagine organizing happiness. So instead, we’re doing our best with this bittersweet celebration of a life well-lived and a woman well-loved. This is the broken part in the middle of a sentence where our voices catch and we dissolve into tears, expectedly or unexpectedly. And that’s ok. Eventually, we’ll pick ourselves up and finish the sentence, because that’s what she would’ve done and that’s what she would’ve wanted. And because we have each other, thanks to this family she built for us. But for now, it’s time for “baseball”; sad, messy, and all we can stand for as long as we need. 

When we were little, she’d often ask us, “How much does Mommy love you?” She’d stretch her arms wide and drag out the response “Thiiiiiis much”. May we find a way to feel her presence more than her loss as we move through the rest of our lives without her. And may her spirit delight in the knowledge that our love for her is much broader than our arms could ever stretch.